Spirited All Over Again
by Avasinclair123
Summary: Excerpt: It was a dream, one that had plagued her throughout her childhood and well into adulthood. It was always set in the same place. A new town, an abandoned theme park, an adventure. She would never think of it as a nightmare, she couldn't. Even though parts of it kept her paralyzed on the bed in fear, those where the Dragon Haku was injured, the Witch Yubaba billowing smoke
1. Chapter 1

**In order to celebrate the year that I have been on Fanfiction, I decided to write a fanfiction in the fandom where I originally began. Spirited Away has been and will forever be one of the greatest movies of all time. **

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It was a dream, one that had plagued her throughout her childhood and well into adulthood. It was always set in the same place. A new town, an abandoned theme park, an adventure. She would never think of it as a nightmare, she couldn't. Even though parts of it kept her paralyzed on the bed in fear, those where the Dragon Haku was injured, the Witch Yubaba billowing smoke, the rest of the images in her head filled her with peace. It always started the same, through the forest in the car. Her father driving too fast, her mother shouting that he was going to kill them. A statue in the middle of the road, her father breaking hard. A plaster building, the wind picking up pulling them in. A theme park, food everywhere, her parents gorging themselves on food, the adults turning into pigs.

It was enough to terrify her, but it never did. It was as if she always knew, in the back of her mind, in her very core, that it would all be alright. Yes she relived those dreams almost every night, but in her dreams the fear and uncertainty caused her heart to race. More than once she found herself on the floor where she had fallen off the bed from tossing and turning. Every night her dream played out, and every night had a different outcome. Haku would return with her, she would stay with him, her enslavement, him finding her twenty years later.

But Chihiro only visited this place in her dreams, in her waking world she attended school, had friends, and attempted to have a social life. She never quite fit in, but she never stood out. She was just average. Her dreams were her escape from the mundane world that she was forced to live in. When she was a child she found Haku as a playmate, when she grew up, she fell in love with the dragon of her dreams.

Art was her favorite subject, Haku was her favorite thing to draw. Green was her favorite color, and her hair was always tied by a purple hairband. Her parents were always cautious, they were never greedy and always thought of others. She was always afraid of bathhouses and for some reason she lost her love of radishes. She believed that babies should be let outside to feel the sunrise, and birds were her favorite wild animals. She never swatted at flies and mice were her favorite pets. Spiders reminded her of grandfathers and although she had many friends, she was never particularly close to any of them.

She hated the thought of being separate from her parents for too long, and shadows were a mystery. She was an advocate against pollution and sent around a petition to stop construction on the apartments built on the Kohaku River. She would watch boats with a vivid curiosity. She loved eating berries and frogs kind of freaked her out. She would catch herself watching soot, to see if it would come alive, and sometimes she swore that she could see things that couldn't be seen.

For her eighteenth birthday, her friends took her to see a fortune teller. The woman told her that she had been touched by the spirit world. Chihiro recalled almost dying as a child, when she fell into a river. The fortune teller said she was touched another time, Chihiro's friends called her a fraud, but the memory jogged the girl's memory.

She always held her breath going over bridges, but never made it. Her friends called her odd, but they found her quirks adorable sometimes.

"Chihiro, what are the names of your characters again?" Linnette, a new friend asked.

"Haku the water dragon, Kamaji, the boiler man, Yubaba the bathhouse witch, Zeniba her sister. Rin, the girl who works at the bathhouse, Boh, the giant baby, No-Face, a spirit who every body thinks is a monster."

"Don't get her started Linnette, there are so many more she could go on for ages." Rina laughed.

Chihiro just smiled, "You know what's weird, I remember running down a long flight of stairs as a child and running into a wall."

"Did this happen before or after you crossed the bridge?"

"After." her brow furrowed and another headache settled in.

These always happened when she remembered something.


	2. Chapter 2

_She found herself walking through a deserted building, no, it was a tunnel. There was no one in sight, her footfalls echoed in the dark corridor until she finally saw a light. Her footfalls sped up until she raced through the light and into a beautiful meadow. A small stream cut through the middle of the grassy hills. Chihiro walked down one hill, carefully over the rocks, then up the stone steps. Once she cleared the hill, her eyes were filled with the sights of food stands. Smoke rose from the chimneys and the succulent smells assaulted her nostrils. But something in her knew she couldn't eat the food, they belonged to someone else. Her stomach rumbled loudly and her mouth watered when she passed a stand serving an exotic chicken looking dish. She kept walking however, until she spotted the magnificent building at the end of the lane. It was tall, it was red, it was spewing black smoke out of it's chimney, and it was beautiful. She walked to the edge of the bridge and stood, just staring at it, allowing herself to be bombarded with memories. _

"Chi! Wake up!" the voice of her roommate and best friend Rina was shaking her. "You're going to make us late for orientation!"

Chihiro groaned and sat up. Her eyes were groggy and itchy with sleep, but she couldn't shake the dream. It was a reoccurring dream. Every night the same, only this time she actually got to the building. A part of her knew what it was, it was the bathhouse. She nodded at Rina and started getting out of bed to start her day.

Linnette was waiting at the foot of the stairs of the town house they shared. "Took you two long enough, come on!"

The three girls set off out the door and to the bus stop to wait for the bus that would take them to the local university. Linnette and Rina were both music majors, and Chihiro decided to take up art, with a minor in mythology. It was to be their first orientation for the incoming freshman.

The day passed by in a blur for Chihiro. She was given packets, papers to sign, flyers, and a tour of the art hall where she would spend most of her time. Chihiro had been carrying her portfolio to show to her art teachers, as per request by the dean of the art program. The first teacher, who was also a teacher for the mythology program studied her drawings

"The curve of the body is right, but the details are wrong." The instructor told her, pointing out small things.

"He's a water spirit." Chihiro found herself saying. "I mean, I looked up ideas, maybe I didn't get something right." she took the portfolio off the desk when the teacher was done with it and tucked it under her arm. She shook the man's hand and turned on her heel to run out of the building.

"Chi!" Linnette's voice reached Chihiro's ears while she fled off campus.

She didn't understand what was the matter with her, well scratch that she did. The drawing the instructor criticized was one of her latest. She couldn't remember how to get the curve of his form right, even though she studied her old artwork, she still couldn't get the details right. She was forgetting it, and forgetting how. Hot tears stung her eyes, how she longed to remember what she knew she had forgotten, but the last time she tried her head felt like it was being seared with a hot poker.

Chihiro ran the two miles back home and locked herself in her room. By the time Linnette and Rina got there, Chihiro had filled up more pages of drawings, and ten times more were lying crumpled on the ground or ripped and thrown all over her room. She was tossed on her bed sobbing. She couldn't do it. She couldn't draw him properly anymore. Eight years of not seeing him, not hearing a word from him had made her forget. How could she have forgotten him so easily.

"Chihiro." Rina put her arms around her friend. Linnette was seated on her other side. "Why don't we take a trip back to your old place. Didn't your parents keep the house when they moved?"

Chihiro could only nod. Her parents had moved into a mobile home when she left home. They wanted to travel the continents, but they kept the house. School wouldn't start for another two weeks, so the girls packed up and made the three hour drive back to Chihiro's childhood home.

Chihiro had offered to drive, since she knew the way easily and she needed something to take her mind off the Spirit World. Just thinking of the name made her head hurt. When she got close to her house off the highway, she took an unusual turn.

"Um, Chi, I don't think this is the way to your old place." Rina said concerned when the roads got bumpy.

Chihiro didn't answer her, just went faster and faster as if she was possessed. She drove passed little huts for the spirits of the forrest and through the forrest ignoring her friend's screams. Suddenly she braked hard just before hitting a statue. She got out of the car and walked to the abandoned building.

"That was not funny Chihiro!" Rina scolded after her and Linnette stepped out of the car, "You could have gotten us all killed."

Chihro wasn't listening. Her brow was furrowed and she took a step towards the building, then another and another. It was like her dream, only instead of her footfalls she heard her friends also echoing in the halls. She took off at a sprint, which caused the girls to run to catch up to her, and almost slam into her when she stopped suddenly.

"No way." Chihiro mumbled to herself. Off in the distance smoke was rising in soft lazy plumes. The smell of cooking food filled the air. "No way." her face was excited as she raced over the river and up the steps again. She stopped only to grab her friends' hands and pull them down the lane towards the house.

"Chi...what is this?" Linnette was the first to find her voice. "That looks like the house from your drawings."

"That is the house of my drawings." Chihiro whispered, then suddenly her head felt dizzy, a white hot pain built up behind her eyes and she felt her body hit the ground painfully before succumbing to the darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, how you holding up?" Haku looked up to see the Weasel Spirit that had become his friend and right hand woman.

"Fine, Rin. Just thinking." The water spirit answered.

"Thinking about this last battle, or thinking about the war?"

"Neither actually. Thinking about the past, when we were at peace. Before the war started, before I had to go into battle. Back when I was just a trapped River Spirit who found it impossible to deny help to a ten year old girl." Haku stood and walked towards the window.

"She's been gone for eight hundred years, Haku. If there was any way of her returning, it would have been centuries ago. She's not the one."

"But the way she could calm the spirits. She has to be the one Rin. There is no other explanation how she controlled the No-Face. It was no coincidence that her being here sparked the revolution in the first place! You got your name back two weeks after she left, as did most of the workers. Yubaba was overthrown only a century later."

"And the biggest war between Yubaba's allies and Zeniba's friends was sprung. I know Haku. I've been there from the start. Maybe she was a catalyst that started the war between the sisters, but she can't be the one to end it, she'd die in the process!" Rin was getting agitated, the thought of her friend between the two waring sisters terrified her.

"Not if she was destined for this from the beginning. A spirit in a human vessel, kept safe in the human world until the time came for her to return to our world and end the war. Rin, if this war continues it'll bleed out into the human world, we could end the Universe."

"Haku, have you ever heard of anything like that? And how do you explain her returning in the first place hmm? Was she supposed to have started it, then end it?"

"I don't know, Rin. It's just too much of a coincidence, I cannot ignore it. I-" he was cut off by a knock at the door.

"Master Haku! Humans are at the bridge! One of them looks like Sen, she was on the floor!"

"Chihiro..." Haku glanced at Rin before taking off out the window. He turned into his dragon and flew down where the two disappearing humans were kneeling.

Rina and Linnette were on the edge of hysteria. First they enter this bizarre place that mimics the dreams their best friend had been having. Second their best friend passed out in pain. And third, they were disappearing. Their hands became transparent until they could no longer see them. Both girls were passed the point of shouting for help, and just stared in horror as their forearms and elbows began fading away. Suddenly there was a cold wind and a boy had appeared. With no preliminary introductions he shoved the berries into the girls' gaping mouths and stooped down to pick up the chestnut haired girl lying on the ground.

"Follow me." he said in a hollow voice. The girls just nodded and followed along behind him. They couldn't keep the shock or the recognition off their faces. He was the one from the pictures. Rina thought of the portraits that lined the halls of Chihiro's room, most of them were of the green haired man with piercing Emerald eyes. The drawings hadn't done him justice, he was gorgeous!

Haku led the two girls over the bridge, through the first floor to the elevator. After exiting on the twenty second floor he led them back across the bathhouse until they reached the elevator that took them upstairs to the top floor, where his office and bedroom were held. Rin was already waiting by the door with food.

"You need to eat more or you'll disappear." she had started to say until she noticed the limp girl still in Haku's arms. She quickly thrust the bowls into the other two's arms and shadowed Haku until he laid Chihro on a futon.

"Explain." Haku said in the same hollow voice.

The girls started talking, sometimes over each other, but they managed to get the point across. Chihiro used to dream about this place, she would draw this place. They explained how they got there and how she collapsed after seeing the bathhouse, and how her collapse was an hour ago.

"She hasn't woken up." Rina said in a soft voice.

"What are your names again?" Haku asked, curiosity filling his tone.

"I'm Rina."

"And I'm Linnette."

"And how long have you known Chihiro?" Haku asked.

"We grew up together. We've known her for years. Have been her best friends since kindergarten." Linnette answered proudly.

Haku's brow furrowed, "So you three and Rumi?"

"Who?" Rina asked, confused.

Haku just shook his head and walked over to the human laying on the futon. He knelt next to her and placed his hands on her templed, "In the name of the water within me, awaken her."

_Chihiro had been dreaming again, but this dream was more detailed than every before. She saw everything. From the moment her parents turned into pigs to the time she gave Haku his name back, all the way to her returning home and passing through the gate. She was remembering everything and the searing pain in her head was ebbing away. Then she heard his voice and she became aware of everything again. _

Everyone gasped when Chihiro sat up in her futon. "Haku!" she turned and looked into the green eyes next to her, and without thinking, threw her arms around his neck. She clung to him and adjusted her body so she was kneeling. Her face was buried in the hollow of his throat and her hot tears trailed down his neck and chest. He was startled at first, but his arms wound their way along her waist and he held her tight against him, murmuring soothing words into her hair. Chihiro sobbed away the last eight years of her life then stood up and shakily made her way to Rin, where the tears started all over again.

"How did you get back?" Haku asked after the tears were dried, the girls were fed and they were all settled in with hot mugs of tea in their hands.

"I don't know, I was on my way home and something pulled me over here, I just had to come and see if the gate was open."

Haku nodded and took a sip from his mug. "It's not safe in our world. Zeniba and Yubaba are at war with each other."

There was a tinkle of broken glass and a puddle of tea spread along the floor, but the Chestnut haired woman didn't move or speak. Rin cleaned up the mess and picked up the glass and all eyes were on Chihiro to see her reaction, and to make sure she didn't have a fit.

"How?"

"After you left, the workers started remembering their names. They, they revolted against Yubaba for their freedom back. To be out of their contracts. But many of them didn't want to, they wanted to forget their past, to forget why they chose to lose their true names in the first place. The spirits that wanted freedom looked to Zeniba for help. She agreed that enough was enough and that Yubaba needed to stop, those that wanted to forget signed their names back to Yubaba and she turned them into her army. Many other spirits, old friends and acquaintances of theirs chose sides. We haven't had peace for eight hundred years."

"But I left eight years ago."

"Time runs different here." Haku shrugged.

"So, now what?" Rina asked, looking around the spacious room. She seemed to be soaking in the details.

"So now you three have to go." Haku said with a stern voice.


End file.
